I'm puzzled

We live there

This is the view when I am walking home. There are always bikes parked along the sidewalks.

oops

I'm silly. I thought a tajine went in the oven. No, it just gets simmered on top of the stove. Tonight I made a chicken tajine with lots of onions, walnuts, and pomegranite juice. Yum.

Tagine

Even before we went to Morocco Rob has been fascinated with Tajine. It's a dish and also a dish. Meaning, it's the name of a kind of food, and it is also the dish it's cooked in. We ate tajines in Morocco several times, almost always chicken. So for a realllllllly early Father's Day gift I bought him a tajine. It arrived this morning (TZZZZZZZZZT!!!!!! that's the sound of the door buzzer, loud and surprising and usually causing me to jump about a foot into the air) and I happily unpacked it and then wondered, will this tajine, which is larger than I thought it would be, fit into our tiny oven? The answer is, just barely.

League of Accidental Hausfraen

Shortly after we moved here to Munich I found a website called "Toytown Germany." It is a site for English speaking expats from all over the place. The first event we attended was an American Stammtisch with a 4th of July party, in 2008. Encouraged by the seeming plethora of English speakers, I created a group for people that like playing board games. Almost 2 years later, we regularly see all but one of the 6 game playing people that first came to our apartment. Now the group meets at restaurants around town, most recently at a place called "Amigos Locos." Encouraged by the success of that group, I went looking for something to do during the day. My friend Kathy, whom I met at one of the games nights, signed up for a League of Accidental Hausfrauen meeting. I thought, what the heck, sounds like a good thing, and so I signed up too. The group meets at restaurants all over Munich, sometimes as often as once a week. Some weeks there are 5 women, some weeks there are 30. Sometimes there is even a hausmanner. I've met a lot of nice women in this group, from Seattle, and Russia, and Iceland, Finland and Australia and New Zealand. England and Ireland and France. Some of them have been in Germany for 20 years, and some have only been here for a week when they first come. It's always a relief to go somewhere and converse in English for a couple hours! Here is the sign the most recent restaurant used to reserve our table for us. Reserved, from 11:30 hour, on 13th of April 2010.

Ravioli

Last summer for his birthday I bought Rob a ravioli form. He likes to make his own pasta, especially for Maultaschen (the German version of ravioli, basically). We had a pasta roller thing already. Well, last weekend Rob finally got around to actually trying the ravioli form. By the way, it tasted as good as it looked!

A glass of water

When you go to a restaurant in Munich and ask for water, it is likely they will bring you a bottle of sparkling mineral water. I don't like sparkling mineral water, so I learned to ask for it without gas, "wasser ohne gas." But sometimes it still tastes exactly like sparkling mineral water, only it's flat. Ick. So I needed to ask for plain old tap water, "leitungswasser." But when you only want free, tap water, you don't get much. Look at the size of the tea cup compared to the glass. It's only about 3" tall! And it only came half full!

...and then she said, "something blue"

Last night we had another Toytown games night. We meet at a mexican restaurant not far from our apartment. Not that the food really tastes like mexican food. But anyhow. We never quite know who will show up. There are always a few newbies. So last night, we got to the place a few minutes before they opened, and were waiting around outside (and it was cold--it snowed this morning!) and a young woman walked up. Not exactly an ordinary woman. Young, for sure. Very slender. Black shoes, black tights, full, flouncy black skirt. Orange blouse, black vest, black gloves, black hat. Purple glasses. Glitter near the eyes. We asked her if she was looking for Toytown, and yes, she was. So we went into the restaurant, got seated at our usual table. The waiter came over and asked what we'd like. Rob: "dunkeles weiss bier, bitte." Me: "a glass of white wine, please." The girl: "Something blue."

Jesus is in my bucket!

A couple weeks ago I looked in my bucket and there He was, staring back up at me.

No wonder

Here i am, back in Munich. When I arrived last week, I wondered why the faucet sprayed sideways more than downward. Then I unscrewed the aerator and found out. I bought a new one. The water here is very calcium rich.